Hit the wrong button!

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I’d written a poem about nature and autumn. But my phone won’t save drafts of my posts. I hit the wrong key. So I’ve lost it. It no longer exists. Like summer moving into autum then onwards, the poem has gone into the aether, lost for all time. I could try rewriting it, but the sentiment is lost, the feeling has gone. I’d done some nice rhymes, but I’m not going to easily remember them.

And when we get to this time next year? The world will have moved on through space and time. We never come back to the same place. The Earth turns, spiralling around the sun, which in turn moves around the galaxy…..

Bye words, take care xxx

After Hokusai’s Great Wave

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my attempt at the great wave after Hokusai.

I’m writing an assignment about the artist Hokusai and his ink and wood block print, The Great wave, or The Great Wave off Kanagawa produced around 1830. He had previously painted two other great waves in 1803 and 1805. There is a collection of 36 views of Mount Fuji by him.

I found out that he had been influenced by an artist called Shiba Kokan, who in turn had been influenced by Western Art. The Portuguese first started trading with the Japanese as early as 1543 and later the Dutch came along and started to trade with them in 1609.

Hokusai’s first waves were not as stylised as the Great Wave, but over the intervening 30 years he honed his style. His wave painting has a low horizon which gives it a more western and also menacing feel. The wave towers over three fishing boats, threatening to swamp them, Fingers of water claw the air in a very fractal pattern, and a tiny Mount Fuji sits in the background, apparently encircled by a threatening sea and lowering clouds.

Did you know the wave emoji is based on Hokusai’s work, and this in turn is linked to the waving hand emoji. There is a site called emojipedia that gives lots of interesting facts about emoji icons.

I wont go into great detail about the assignment, but I had to link in semiotics and other ways of critically appraising art works. I was up till 4am trying to pull it all together!

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Many moons ago

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In a time when photos

were printed on paper,

and swords

were made of cardboard

and silver foil.

Hooped earrings were in fashion,

And bangles jingled.

I wore an eyepatch on my glasses

and pretended to be

Long John Silver,

or Captain Hook,

Red beard

or some other rapskallion…

Oh what fun!

To be young again,

and silly…

Playing with paint

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Oh I do like playing with paint. For example this is a little canvas I’m working on, it’s a WIP, (work in progress). I was thinking of adding some patterns and decorations to it. Maybe in the sky. Some stars, a comet, maybe a pattern in the glass. I haven’t decided yet. It’s another acrylic on canvas. I was trying to make more of a stylised character out of it.

Better get on and do some more work on things.

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£10 treasure from a charity shop

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It’s not often that you find a cycling scalextric set for sale for a tenner, and it works. From a local charity shop. After a bit of messing about with the pickups underneath the model cyclists, we were flying round the velodrome, racing round the backed curves and barging each other in the little built in narrow sections. I flew off into the crowd and hubby fell off sideways onto the blue track around the base of the racing surface. It was fun, I actually smiled! Plus the cat found it interesting, her head was going side to side as she watched the toy cyclists.

It bought back memories of Sir Chris Hoy at the London Olympics, and all the different sorts of races cyclists do, devil take the hind most,  different numbers of laps, pursuit and other races, (OK I cant remember the names). They race fixed gear bikes with no brakes on banked track. I had a go once. I could not get onto the banking on my old steel bike. I was much happier watching the races!

Pool

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I use a piece of plastic to keep my acrylic paints moist between using them. A little bit of each paint sticks to the plastic. So I pressed it against a tiny 3 inch square canvas. I did it over and over, rubbing the plastic down onto the canvas and turning it round each time. When I looked at the result I thought it looked like reflections on a pool so added curves to look like ripples from drops of rain. Just simple…

I might turn the orange splodges into goldfish….

Tomorrow

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A stitch in time saves nine,

Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Manyana

Prevarication

Am I depressed? I have things to do, and I keep putting them off. Watching TV, doing other things, like painting. I need to call the builder because I’ve found a crack in our front wall. I need to finish an assignment, I need to look after myself, I need to regain some calmness and relax.

Part of it is lack of sleep. Staying up late, one more blog, TV show, book to read. I’m not being organised. Maybe I can sort things out.

What to do. Don’t stay up till 1am. Or later.. Much later.. Oh hell!

Too many nights have turned into day while I’ve been mooching about. The little twitches of my mind as I listen to pings from my phone. How did I ever get so addicted to a phone!

Urban sketching, Square

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Quick sketch with pencil colours and fine line black ink.

Two square canvases and a square card. All sitting on my little easle and a paintbrush and plastic tub I use for a palette.

I lined around the coloured pencil to define the square shapes and subjects more, but I didn’t want to overdo things. I do like being challenged to draw different things. Been loving USK prompts.

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Eggs… Pancakes?

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My hubby keeps buying eggs but we are not using them up. They are getting towards the end of their life so I will be making an omelette for tea or even pancakes with blueberries and lemon juice.

If I’m making pancakes, I will make a batter from eggs, milk, and flour. I tend to use self raising flour because the pancakes puff up. I’m not one of these thin, crepes, type of pancake people. My mom used to make pancakes in February for Shrove Tuesday. She would add snow water to the batter (yes it used to snow in February!)

So if you want to make them I will try and write a recipe.

First get 2 mugs full of flour. Plain or self raising, this is for a few people so reduce amounts in proportion for one. Put in a mixing bowl.

Then add two or three eggs depending on the size of your mug. (Make a little well in the flour and break the eggs into it.)

Mix together and slowly add around a mug of milk. Add it slowly and stir it in. Keep an eye on the consistency, you want it pourable, like double cream, (heavy cream in America I think?)

Once it’s mixed just put it aside to rest in the fridge  (I don’t know why?)

Then get a frying pan, coat the bottom with a small amount of oil, or a spray frying oil or butter. Heat the pan up quite hot and carefully pour the batter in. Tip the pan to spread the batter out till it covers the base of the pan. If there is still wet batter on the top you can pull the pancake away from the edges of the pan with a spatula and let the batter spill into the gap. Turn it over with a spatula when it’s gone golden brown and cook for a few more seconds on the other side. ( You don’t have to toss it).

Sprinkle with sweetener or sugar and lemon juice when it’s on your plate. Add fruit to taste. When you’ve done one heat the pan again. You might not need to add oil as there should still be some left behind.

Continue till you have used all the mix. You can vary the thickness depending on how hungry you are!

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Cherry ripe

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Got to try and harvest some more cherries between the thunderstorms.

We got a lot off the lower branches. We need a rake or something to grab some of the other branches. We have almost eaten the other ones we picked. I’m jealous of the birds that can get at the ones on the top branches. It’s great to have fresh fruit grown in your own garden. My friend bought a cherry tree but hers was a sour type. Ours is sweet. It’s worth checking and this tree is self fertile which means it sets fruit without the need of a companion tree.

Happy gardening.

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